


Here's to You

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 05:24:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20924876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: Dreams are sometimes overwhelming, particularly when you find yourself existing inside them. Auron has little more than his thoughts inside the dream of the Fayth, but even when they're exhausting those thoughts are a strange sort of comfort.





	Here's to You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Siver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siver/gifts).

After a lifetime with the knowledge that Zanarkand was a crumbling ruin of a society long dead, seeing it at the height of its glory was an almost terrifying experience. The streets were constantly busy, a wild blur of flashing lights and rushing people. Heavy bass, both from music and the hum of so much machina, was more common than the sounds of any urban wildlife. There was no such thing as a moment of silence, and it took serious dedication to be able to find some place that wasn’t lit at a constant by blindingly bright city lights.

Auron took to watching the whole sprawling nightmare from the safety of the tallest rooftops he could find, stepping back into the shadows whenever it got to be too much. There was a terrible weight to the knowledge that while he was surrounded by life on all sides he was the only one in millions that knew it wasn’t real. There were more people than he’d ever seen in the city below, and every last one of them was the product of a dream. It was just one more observation in a lengthy list of things that weighed heavily on his mind.

He was possessed of a bone-deep weariness—made worse, of course, by the knowledge that he didn’t truly have bones. They were nothing more than the projection of the pyreflies his consciousness was clinging to so thoroughly. He aged only because he knew that he should or the dream natives of Zanarkand might grow suspicious. And every moment he was certain he could still hear Jecht’s booming laugh or Braska’s quiet admonishment. The happy memories were interspersed with the horrors of that final battle, and though he didn’t truly feel anything anymore phantom pains chased along his scars like a terrier pursuing a jackrabbit. 

On quieter nights when the city’s neon glow was tempered by low hanging clouds, he would stare out across the adjoining waves and wait to see the ocean beyond the skyline swell. The surface never broke, and he knew without asking around that the citizens of the metropolis never managed to notice. It was always distant, a rising hump of saltwater so close to the horizon that it could easily be missed, but Auron knew it was there. The first time he’d seen it had been a shock, an image he’d tried to convince himself was caused by the alcohol that he drank in spite of the effect it no longer had on his undead form. He’d stared for so long the first time it appeared that the sun rose, blinding his remaining eye just long enough that the sea became a flat line before he could focus on it again.

It could have been a figment of his imagination, of course. He wouldn’t be the first Spiran driven made by the call of the Farplane when they stubbornly chose to remain in the world. It whispered to him constantly behind the cacophony of urban sounds. Still, the next night found him back on a rooftop, his gaze fixed on the spot where the ocean met the sky. It continued for every night thereafter. He’d stare over the edge of whichever skyscraper he’d settled upon and watch as the calm seas rose into a bubble of churning black water. He knew what was beneath the bubble. He could recognize Jecht in whatever form he took after all the dreams he haunted. His old friend, it seemed, would hold him to his word. 

After a handful of appearances, he began to carry a heavy jug of harsh liquor on his nightly vigils. Some nights he left it alone, but whenever his eye found a bump rising beneath the waves he took the jug in hand. One day that swell would turn into a tidal wave that would wash the dream of Zanarkand away. One day he would see his promises through to their inevitable painful conclusion. One day Jecht would return him to the Spira he’d given his life to protect, but until then…

He raised the jug.


End file.
